2011两会专题控制通货膨胀是第一要务.docVIP

Premier: Curbing inflation tops govt agenda Premier Wen Jiabao meets the press after the closing meeting of the Fourth Session of the 11th National Peoples Congress (NPC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing March 14. BEIJING - China will step up efforts to improve peoples livelihoods through holding down inflation, increasing affordable housing and raising farmers incomes, Premier Inflation will top the governments agenda this year, Wen said. Inflation is like a tiger; once it gets free, it is difficult to put it back in the cage, he said at the news conference at the closing of the annual National Peoples Congress session. The country faces both domestic and external challenges in fighting inflation, which reached 4.9 percent in February year-on-year. China has set a target of keeping inflation at or below 4 percent for the whole year. International factors are behind Chinas inflation, Wen said, citing a certain countrys quantitative easing policy that has led to drastic currency and commodity price fluctuations. The US Federal Reserve announced in November it would pump $600 billion into the US economy to bolster growth, which analysts said would in turn raise the risk of rising prices across the world as it leads to a weakening dollar and increasing liquidity. Oil prices, for example, have recently hovered at around $100 a barrel. A severe difficulty is international food price inflation, which China cannot control, said John Ross, visiting professor at Antai College of Economics and Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. This will continue even if excess liquidity is removed inside China, he said. Worse, some even forecast the US Fed may continue to inject capital into the market after June in a so-called third round of quantitative easing. Although he holds that the possibility is slim, Ross said if there is a third round of easing, it will make the situation more difficult for China, as it will increase international inflation. China wi